ASH BUS 307 Week 5 Final Assignment Paper

1. What recommendations would you make to John Wolf with respect to structuring the supplier relationship process for the Wolf Motors dealership network?

Chopra, S., & Meindl, P. (2012). Supply chain management: Strategy, planning, and operation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

The topic selected is (Strategic Procurement & Supply Chain Management). For this study, we have selected Toyota Motor Corporations as our company of choice. Toyota is without doubt the best in the world, with its many philosophies and principles on how to make the best out of the least; JIT, lean production and elimination of waste and the desire for continuous improvement are just a few ways how Toyota has become the best in the auto industry. Toyota as a name, a company, and as a brand has become synonymous with Quality.

1. Study the networked supply chain concept as implemented by Cisco. What are its strengths and weaknesses?

4.Given the 4 areas of the company, choose some supply chain processes and suggest appropriate performance metrics.

Russell, R. S., & Taylor III, B. W. (2014). Operations and Supply Chain Management, 8th edition. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Communication is the most important aspect of conducting business. Toyota must improve their means of communication and it must start at the beginning of the customer/supplier relationship. The Process Flow chart will identify the communication process between Toyota and supplier is further updated to show improved processes. Expectations should be established to ensure that suppliers are providing the quality products that represent the Toyota brand. Currently, Toyota has sacrificed quality and safety to meet the demands of the customers. Toyota must take into consideration the market they enter and the major players that exist to provide the support necessary. Toyota uses the Annual Purchasing Policy process to communicate their expectations to suppliers. “The purpose of supplier expectations is to highlight key priority activities and emphasize broader, more philosophical issues universal to all suppliers (ToyotaSupplier.com, 2012).” In addition, “individual expectations, on the other hand, are developed uniquely for each supplier and include specific targets in the key areas of quality, delivery, value improvement and minority sourcing (ToyotaSupplier.com,

"Despite the odds, Toyota and Honda have managed to replicate in an alien Western culture the same kind of supplier webs they built in Japan. Consequently, they enjoy the best supplier relations in the U.S. automobile industry…." (page 3 of the Liker & Choi article). Briefly describe the authors' explanation for why Toyota and Honda succeeded where the "Big 3" failed in terms of effective supplier relationship management. Do you agree with Liker & Choi's assessment? Please explain why or why not. Are there any barriers to prevent Ford and GM from emulating Toyota and Honda's approach to supplier relationship management?

Define the situation (case summary) Define the major issues, conflicts, and the network . Describe the options (alternatives) for solving these issues. Several internal and external influences serve as contributing factors in the reconsideration of the company’s current system. Changes in customer demands, domestic and global competition, and a unique decentralized management system is now forcing the Westminster Company to reevaluate their traditional supply chain practices. (Bowersox & M.B., 2014) Westminster’s domestic operations consist of three separate companies that sell and distribute products to several of the same customers. (Bowersox & M.B., 2014) At first glance consolidation of the systems can significantly improve

Mr Taichi Ohno first developed the Lean Concepts at Toyota ( Womack, 1998) The principles he developed are applicable both to the manufacturing and the service sectors( A.Lakshminarasimha,2005). To enable a proper perspective on the concepts of Lean, an attempt is made to briefly recapitulate on them.

writes in his article ‘Case Study: How Lean Manufacturing Failed’ (2008) that lean implementation is a journey which may not give the desired results immediately. It might even fail to give successful results at all. According to Ortiz’s experience, certain companies applying lean may struggle to achieve results due to various challenges like poor management commitment, poor training, lack of commitment and accountability. This reflects that lean is not a magical principle that may solve all the business problems.

When we relate these challenges in modern supply chain management to specifically the North American Auto Industry we observe that the major issues faced by this industry are from four perspectives.

4. In a service supply chain, the (explicit) cost of information is higher than in a product

The concept of lean production in a manufacturing organization basically means to try and maximise the use of materials to achieve optimum customer value and at the same time reducing waste and ensuring the same standard of quality in the finished product. Reducing the resources means it will cheaper for the organization to create the product plus also for the

One factor that adds to the success of Toyota’s supply chain is their relationship with their suppliers and how they do business with those suppliers. Toyota does not simply give their supply contracts to the highest bidder; instead they work incredibly closely with their suppliers so that they can get the highest quality products possible. Toyota uses long-term, just-in-time contracts with all of their suppliers (Winfield & Hay, 1997). Toyota does not engage in any kind of mutual contracts, such as buy-back or revenue-sharing; however, they do take multiple steps to ensure a mutual benefit when they pair up with a supplier. Toyota invests in their suppliers to help them develop products (Liker & Choi, 2004). They also ensure that they share information with their suppliers in a structured fashion. They believe that targeted information leads to results and they ensure that specific communication is relayed to their suppliers at set times and in set ways (Liker & Choi, 2004). Perhaps the most unique aspect of Toyota’s relationships with their suppliers is that they embark on joint improvement ventures together. They set up study groups with suppliers to help both parties learn how to improve operations and send executives and engineers to the supply plants to help them improve processes (Liker & Choi, 2004). These kinds of benefits are described in the contracts Toyota keeps with their suppliers (Toyota Supplier, 2011). The close relationships that